Have you ever asked the question as to why there appears to be very little connection with those who have died? Through religious rituals (mainly traditions from the past) there were and are worthy attempts in producing remembrance and service to those who have departed. For thousands of years religious rituals have felt to be appropriate up until only recently as conditions in being a human have changed.
Our acceptance of formal religions and rituals has waned and thereby religious influence is now quickly diminishing, especially in the west and as such something more is now required to add to our previous faith, rituals, prayers and ceremonies to carry us to the heights that religion once achieved with the departed. This something more is our own individual conscious efforts and understanding of these processes.
Today, there exists a wide divide of awareness between us who are living and the departed, hence, we easily forget about those who have crossed to the other side. The characteristic of our age is that it is very difficult in gaining an awareness of those who are on the other side. In the past there was much more interaction with those who had departed although this took place in a more or less unconscious manner. Simpler societies still maintain some connections with those who have departed through the use religious ritual and ceremonies and this will be beneficent for many years to come. Our age, because of the materialistic conceptual thought structures and individualism has created difficult conditions for us to become aware of those who have departed when we rely on methods from past. However, for the sake of humanity’s future development more conscious links need to be established between the living and those on the other side.
We find it extremely difficult to recognize or to even acknowledge the possibility of the existence of another being unless this being behaves as though it is a human personality or is visible to the senses like that of the animal kingdom or presents itself as some sort of vision. However there many other beings or intelligences which surround us which are not like earthy personalities, are not visible to the senses nor appear in visionary forms and, hence these are either ignored by us, in that their effects are treated as forces of nature or because of our current egocentric nature they are seen as own inner impulses i.e. the effects of these non incarnated beings are perceived and acknowledged but the real causes of their effects is denied by being represented by concepts of inanimate mechanical chance-like forces of nature or physics or are taken to be some brilliant but unexplained unconscious operation of our inner lives. In other words the effects on us of the departed and the spiritual world and its beings have been conceptualized away with materialistic concepts or half truths. This has had the effect of placing a veil over our eyes (maya) in preventing us from perceiving what is actually around us in its full reality. In the past when the ancients looked to the starry heavens they not only saw the physical movements of the starry realms but saw in the movements of the stars and planets the ‘footprints’ of the gods which had strong reverberations here on earth - today, a dim echo of this still remains in astrology. Our modern state of perceiving the world only allows us to view half the picture (Maya) but this state of being is actually a necessary requisite of our evolutionary pathway until individuals become sufficiently strengthened in their ‘I’ consciousness, i.e. in their personality, so as to achieve humanity’s purpose of conscious self directed activity in freedom without being controlled by the impulses and directives of hidden spiritual beings who are at all times active within our immediate environment. Further, if we are not sufficiently strengthened in our inner nature and we do prematurely become directly aware of departed souls and other entities which surround us and work within our inner lives we can become playthings of the various psychic forces emanating from the other side and we may not develop a strong healthy self directing earthly ‘I’ conscious, in fact we could become mentally unstable. Today, it is now necessary, if humanity’s evolution is to move forward, to gain an awareness of the true nature of the departed and those beings which are on the other side. Only then can meaningful interactions take place. If this does not come about then the influence malevolent beings will gradually replace the beneficent influence of the departed and these influences will manifest as negative tendencies within individuals. eg there is a marked and rapid worldwide increase of mental illness, such as depression, and anti-social tendencies taking hold which have been caused by certain negative unconscious influences originating from the other side, however these negative influences are generally conceptualized to be of a psychological or bodily origin and it is thought that these influence can be cured by popping a pill.
One of the major obstacles in communicating with the departed is that we are not aware how these communications can take place as we can wrongly expect that these communications should be the same or similar as they had occurred with the individuals when they were alive. There was a great deception in the recent past when mediums propagated the false notion that communications with the departed occur in the same way as they occur with personalities when, in actuality, these mediums had only accessed the discarded astral shells of departed individuals which had then become became inhabited and animated by other, usually malevolent, spiritual entities. These disguised entities then unlawfully appeared in the form of the departed personalities which worked through the medium. The real individualities, however, had already moved on to other spiritual spheres. These types of communications have given a false picture of what actually takes place with those from the other side. Hence, any communications which appear in the form of a personality, through a medium, must be treated with the utmost suspicion with respect to its genuineness.
After death, as we no longer have a physical brain, we will no longer able to think but we will feel, perceive and be aware far more intensely of our spiritual environment. We will bear the fruits of understanding from what we had learnt whilst we were in a physical body. Our new environment, where we will no longer bound by the limitations of the personality, will now encompass countless higher and lower spiritual beings including those of other departed souls weaving in and amongst us and together with a myriad of living thoughts, feelings and will impulses. Some can rightly describe this in another way that we now live within GOD or SELF and from our perspective this is a simple yet appropriate description, however, although many would like to believe that after death one enters for all time into eternal bliss it is not so. Our understanding of and our interaction with these elements in our new spiritual environment will depend upon how we had lived our life on earth; whether we were moral or immoral; religious or non religious; spiritual or non spiritual. After death one special area which we will always be able to perceive and understand are the noble and spiritual thoughts and feelings of those friends whom we knew and who are still living. Hence those on the physical plane can be of immense service to departed friends
The peculiarity of the departed state is that individuals virtually can no longer learn anything new, nor initiate any new actions on their own which have not been prepared for by them when they were alive. This means that they cannot understand what they perceive around them after death unless they had prepared themselves whilst they were alive eg in an unfavorable situation it can like being born blind all our lives and no one tells us that there are things called colors and then, if we do regain our sight we become bewildered by the perception all these colors as we have no concepts to help us to understand what we now perceive. But the situation after death is even more restrictive in that it is not even possible for the departed to figure it out as we can still do here on earth UNLESS they have gained this ability to understand from the fruits of their deeds whilst they were alive and/or they are helped by those whom they knew who are still living.
If we wish to have a connection with the departed, we must be aware that instead of interacting with a human personality, with its attendant physical and intellectual characteristics responses, we now need to interact the departed souls who are now entities of awareness or consciousness and who no longer occupy any particular physical space or form but can be present everywhere in their own particular environment. Their communications to us have a similarity to forces of nature or inner psychological impulses, intuitions and feelings. There is no question of being able to chatter with the departed as we chatter with one another at five o'clock teas and in cafes. What makes it possible to put questions to the departed or to communicate something to the departed is that we unite the life of feeling with our thoughts and ideas.
When we speak, we know that the words come from us; when another person speaks to us, we know that the words come from them. The whole relationship is reversed when we are speaking with the departed as the relationship is reversed. When we put a question to the departed, or say something to them, what we say comes to us from them. They inspire into our soul what we ask them, what we say to them i.e. We perceive it is as though we ourselves are asking the question or saying something. And when they answer us or say something to us, this comes out of our own soul i.e. we perceive it is as though it is ourselves who answer or say something. It is a process with which a human being in the physical world is quite unfamiliar. He feels that what he says comes out of his own being. In order to establish communications with the departed, we must adapt ourselves to hear from them what we ourselves say, and to receive from our own soul what they answer.
The moment of falling asleep is especially favourable for us to turn to the departed. Suppose we want to ask the departed something. We can carry it in our soul, holding it until the moment of falling asleep; for that is the time to bring our questions to the departed. Other opportunities exist, but this moment is the most favourable. When, for instance, we read to the departed we certainly draw near to them. But for direct communication it is best of all if we address our questions to the departed at the moment of falling asleep.
One needs to create a picture memory, with feeling of the departed friend as they were when living and then, also with intense feeling work out the question that one wants answered. Your relationship with the departed must be one of the heart, of inner interest. You must remind yourself of your love for the departed when he/she was alive, and address yourself to him/her not abstractly, but with real warmth of heart. In the evening, as you are going to sleep, your departed friend will be able to receive your question without you even knowing it. Ordinary consciousness as a rule will know little of the happening, because sleep ensues immediately; but what has thus passed over often remains present in dreams. In the case of most dreams — although from the point of view of actual content they are misleading — in the case of most dreams we have of the departed, all that happens is that we interpret them incorrectly. We interpret them as messages from the departed, whereas they are nothing but the echoing of the questions or communications we have ourselves directed to the departed. We should not think that the departed is saying something to us in our dream, but we should see in the dream something that goes out from our own soul to the departed. The dream is the echo of this. If we were sufficiently developed to be conscious of our question or communication to the departed at the moment of going to sleep, it would seem to us as though the departed himself were speaking — hence the echo in the dream seems as if it were a message from the departed. In reality it comes from us. This becomes intelligible only when we understand the nature of clairvoyant connection with the departed. What the departed seems to say to us is really what we are saying to him.
The moment of waking is especially favourable for the departed to approach us. At the moment of waking, very much comes from the departed to every human being. There is no one who does not bring with him at the moment of waking countless tidings from the departed. In the unconscious region of the soul we are speaking continually with the departed. A great deal of what we undertake in life is really inspired into us by the departed and by Beings of the higher Hierarchies, although we usually attribute this to ourselves, as coming from our own soul. Hence we need to develop sensitivity for what comes from the other side in our own inner life.
Further it is possible that those on the other side can perceive something entirely new for the world but don’t have the understanding it themselves and by passing on this perception to us we in turn came interpret it with our thinking abilities and thereby the departed soul can now understand it. This is truly a remarkable and wonderful exchange between the various planes of existence and will become more and more necessary into the future.
What the departed says comes in a form as though it is out of our own soul. The light of the morning draws near, the moment of waking passes quickly by, and we are seldom disposed to observe the intimate indications that arise out of our soul. And when we do observe them we are vain enough to attribute them to ourselves; Yet in all this — and in much else that comes out of our own soul — there lives what the departed have to say to us. What the departed say to us seems to arise out of our own soul. If we knew what life actually is, this knowledge would give rise to a feeling of reverence and piety towards the spiritual world in which we and our departed continually live. We should realize that in much of what we do, it is the departed and other spiritual beings who are working.
Hence after death, the departed will become aware of their loved ones and friends who they leave behind if their loved ones and friends have noble and/or spiritual thoughts. If those that are left behind are materialists the departed knows that their loved ones are here on earth but is not able to establish a connection with them but instead experiences a sad unbearable darkness where their loved ones should be. This connection with those who have remained behind on earth will be such that the departed is able to access their loved one’s inner life so as to express certain intuitions, feelings (imaginations) and impulses. This is, at times can be felt as a very subtle presence and we must develop a sensitivity for this. Hence one must be sensitive and attentive to this experience and then it may be possible to translate these experiences into concepts. However, for accurate conscious interpretations a pathway of self development is usually a pre-requisite.
Those departed souls who have led very materialistic lives or immoral lives, will after a certain period of time, experience long periods of unbearable difficulties in the form of loneliness and isolation as they are not able to light up their environment in which they find themselves in and are unable to find other souls and beings to live with in community. To develop the ability to light up our way is only possible here on earth by spiritual practice, where an understanding of the spiritual world is achieved or through religious practice (formal or informal-religious practice which need not be associated with any formal religion). It is assumed that moral development goes hand in hand. However, here on earth we are also able to greatly assist and perform a valuable service to our former friends, who have died, in their current journey, especially those who had led materialistic lives and as a consequence become bewildered by their new circumstances in which they now find themselves in. We can assist them by calling to mind, in feelings and thought, how they lived and read to them, with understanding, what will be their experiences of the death ( in religious practice:- praying, rituals and ceremonies to the dead also help) or other aspects of spiritual philosophy. The content of this book is a good example of what can be used as reading material. It’s important that the content becomes truly alive and conscious in us as the departed can only read the content of our inner life and not the actual book.
In the past, as still happens today, prayer, ritual and ceremony do much good for departed friends but this is no longer effective for many people in this current age so spiritual philosophy and enquiry are necessary and are adequate additions to the beneficent past practices which are now becoming much less effective due to the progress in evolution. Simply put many individuals can no longer connect with the strict and unquestionable requirements of past practices of the various religious faiths but now require logical thinking and understanding. Hence, at the moment of falling asleep we can put our questions to our departed friends, we say to them what, in the depths of the soul, we have to say. At the moment of waking the departed speak with us, give us the answers. During the day, by reading to the departed we are able to assist them in their new journey in preparation for their next life.
What has been communicated up until this point can be achieved by the average individual in all circumstances. However, for those who wish to proceed to a higher level of direct and conscious communication with the departed individual, need to undertake a disciplined regular and balanced pathway of self development as actual conscious direct communication with an individual who has died is very difficult. It demands scrupulous care and development on the part of the one who seeks it. Control and discipline are necessary for this kind of communication with the spiritual world, for it is connected with a very significant law. The very same thing that we recognize in men on Earth as lower impulses is, from the other, the spiritual side, higher life; and it may therefore easily happen when the human being has not attained true control of himself, that he experiences the rising of lower impulses through direct communications with the departed. It now becomes understandable why there are many cases of spiritual teachers who have fallen into deviant and damaging sexual behaviors.
It is not the departed who arouse these passions but the element in which the departed live. For consider: what we here feel as ‘animal’ in quality and nature is the basic element (astral substance) in which the departed live. The kingdom in which the departed live can easily be changed when it enters into us; what is higher life in yonder world can become lower when it is within us on Earth. Naturally, there can only be danger for those who have not purified their natures through discipline and control and are not aware, through thinking, what the nature of this spiritual environment is. The methods of modern spiritualism must, of course, be avoided. When the communications are not accompanied by pure thoughts it can easily lead to the stimulation of lower passions. Hence, the necessity for a disciplined and balanced pathway of self development if this advanced form of communication is to take place.
